Earlier this year I posted an episode discussing my thoughts on Audio Description. While I’ve been consuming and thinking about description for some time, it was Marvel’s Black panther that sparked me to share some thoughts and ideas.

I decided to continue a discussion on the topic. This time it’s really a conversation. I called a listener who sent me feedback regarding the episodes question. Why didn’t Black Panther have a Black person narrating the description?

And as a bonus, the listener just happens to be someone I’d like to interview for RMM Radio!

So yes, we’re back on that subject or better yet, we’re Black on Audio Description. Let’s get it!

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Transcript

Show the transcript

TR:
What’s up Reid My Mind Radio family? For anyone new to the podcast, my name is T.Reid.

This podcast more than often focuses on issues of adaptation and adjustment through interviews with people who have been impacted by vision loss – from low vision to blindness. I should say severe low vision because personally I’m tired of people telling me how blind they are without their glasses.

You Sir/Madam are more then welcomed here, but if you can put on your corrective lenses and get into your vehicle and drive off – you are not impacted by vision loss.

The people mainly profiled here are indirectly challenging stereotypes about what it means to be blind.

I’m always hopeful that listeners learn something new. Maybe it’s an unfamiliar subject or a new way of looking at or solving a problem.

Occasionally , I share my own experiences around becoming blind as an adult. These are influenced by all aspects of identity – including
gender, socioeconomic status, age, demographic location and of course so called race.
I mean, this is America!

A few episodes ago I discussed an aspect of blindness that can intersect with race.
Audio description!

Audio: “What” – From “Jay Z “Jigga what, Jigga Who.”

Well that could be two whats…

Audio: “What, What” – From “Jay Z “Jigga what, Jigga Who.”

Don’t be nervous! Let’s get into it…
After the intro…!

Audio: Reid My Mind Radio Theme

## TR:

Back to the questions.
What is audio description & what does race have to do with it?

If you don’t know audio description, let me really welcome you to the podcast. Audio description or AD is the additional narration distributed with a movie or television show that describes scenes without dialogue,
enabling a person to non visually follow or access the content.

That other what?
What does being black have to do with audio description?

On the technological level , nothing! But as we know, race is complex. It’s ingrained into the fabric of this country. The complexity though, isn’t tied to the tech, rather its the subtle aspects of language, decisions about what is relevant and the voice of the narrator that impact some viewers experience

In the earlier episode on audio description, I was specifically referring to the Marvel hit movie and what many Black people looked forward to as a cultural event; Black Panther.

Following that piece I received a bit of feedback.
If you go to the episode blog post at ReidMyMind.com you can see one commenter’s response and I encourage you to follow the link to her blog
where she shares more. She is a person who herself is involved in the description process. Self described as a white lady she was appreciative of the issues and questions raised and thought they deserved to be discussed. Shout out to you for the link love and being in the accessibility field. I think sometimes we forget that AD is accessibility.

I also received an email from a young lady – who closely identified with the issues raised in the episode.

She was pleased to know that she was not the only one who felt that the description included with Black Panther, well sucked! My words, not hers.

No shots to the gentlemen who described the film, you sound like you’re probably a very nice person and quite honestly, I’d love to speak with you. In fact, I reached out to Deluxe, the company who created the description for Black panther but I never heard back. I really wanted to begin a dialogue.

It seems fair that a consumer would have something to say about a product or service.
And personally I think it could be helpful to have a bit of input from those who consume your product or service. And well that’s today’s focus.

Audio: James Brown: Black & I’m Proud – Instrumental

That email expressing agreement with my opinions, was from a young lady named Denna Lambert. Like me she experiences blindness as an African American.

She black yawl!

I don’t often get the chance to meet new people who are blind and who are people of color. So I’m not gonna lie, I was looking forward to the conversation. I had questions.

So, let’s get black on Audio Description.

Audio: James Brown: “Say it loud, I’m Black & I’m Proud”

TR in conversation with DL:
You heard the podcast, what was it that jumped out to you to write the email and say “Hey I feel this too, I get it!”

DL:
Well being blind, sometimes just getting audio description feels like a luxury and your happy that somebody did it and it came out at the same time as everything else and I can just shut up and be happy. But at the same time with you being really thoughtful in what you were saying like “hey this was a mismatch” And I was like “Oh, you voiced what I was thinking!” Just knowing that I’m a consumer of a service and we should have a voice in how that service is implemented. If it’s missing a mark we can help take it to the next level. Yes people have fought and probably sued some theaters to make sure the equipment is functional and that is there from day one. But let’s take it to the next level to make sure that it is culturally confident. And it was like Oh Snap I got to support this too. I think that is why I reached out because I was thankful for being silently dissatisfied at some level. I felt like I didn’t get the full Wakanda experience.
TR in conversation with DL:
I’m still lacking some Wakanda experience myself. [laughs]

TR:

That Wakanda experience was what drove millions of Black people to get excited about the movie.

Some indeed were fans of the Marvel franchise, some may have even been fans of the comic book. But many were simply looking forward to a movie with strong diverse images of Black people on screen.
I talked a bit more about that in the original episode of the podcast on this subject.

Denna herself was anticipating the movie just as much as many others and got a bit more into it than I did.
DL:
I was in the hype just like everyone else when the trailer first dropped which didn’t even have audio description. I called my mamma and said let me get my dashiki so I got my dashiki and I was ready and had my headdress. When i heard voices of Andrea Bassett i was like “Yes!” So I went and thankfully the movie theater I went to they had the audio description devices ready and they were fully operational. From the first introduction where they were talking about how Wakanda was created with the different tribes and the describes voice coming up I was like “Who?! Who is this?!” But I’m still excited. So it was kind of a mismatch from everybody who was in the theater. Some people brought their gymbays and people had their dashikis and you know just black power. And you can hear the describer’s voice and not to say you can sum up a movie by their voice but it was like “huh.” The descriptions were definitely okay but that’s the piece as a blind viewer. But there was so much content for any viewer whether they were sighted or blind. I have to wonder what did i miss. Could there have been different words used that would have more aligned with the culture and the theme of the movie.
I started using AIRA and now i started seeing more AIRA agents of color. Im seeing Antonio and Annika and all them. And I’m like “Okay I’m going to need yall and come and describe some movies for me.”

TR in conversation with DL:
MMM you just made me think about something hold on one second. That takes that whole idea of description out of the movie theater because that’s the whole purpose of AIRA and then cultural inclinations about various things that you are doing.

DL:
Yeah. I’ve seen Black Panther abot 3-4 times just because anybody who wanted to go I wanted to go with them. There’s probably so much mystery and thoughtfulness that was put into it. SO like the scene where T’Challa and Nakia were in the club and they were trying to go after the main guy and they were in their attire. I don’t think the person described the attire, he described her movements but i was watching a video from one of the directors and he intentionally used the colors; green, black, and red to symbolize their african pride. And that’s something that just one little sentence could have brought that out. While I was very happy and thankful that the description was available since day one because that certainly was not the case 10-15 years ago that i could just show up whenever i wanted to. But i think there is some growth that could happen with this area of accessibility.

Tr in conversation with DL:
SO went you went a bunch of times with different people, did you go with anyone that was blind or no?

DL:
No actually no it was just with different sighted friends who just wanted to go.

Tr in conversation with DL:
Did you compare notes with them or anything at all?
DL:
A little bit because I went with some friends that were black and then I went with some friends that were white. And you know they were asking me what was this and what was that and i was like well I don’t know. [Laughs]

Tr in conversation with DL:
“I don’t live in Wakanda!” [laughs]

TR:

There are definitely some overlaps in this conversation around audio description that transcend cultural Competence.

Feeling as though audio description is a privilege, I’m sure is something many blind people have felt.

Going to a theater and the device doesn’t work, well you may not want to trouble the person you’re with to quickly exchange the device. That means missing part of the movie and chances are you don’t want someone to have to do that.

Shout out to ActiView and their audio description solution that puts more of the power in the consumers hands. You can check out the Reid My Mind Radio archives for that interview on that service that I personally hope begins to get more movies in their app.

Audio: Public Enemy: Party for Your Right to Fight

Privilege or a right?

If audio description is access to content, then I believe it’s a right. Like everyone else who has the right to pay money to watch a film or television show, people with disabilities have the right to audio description, captions and physically accessible theaters.

What makes our lack of excitement about Black panther’s audio description
so confusing is the lack of consistency between the big and small screens.

Watching the Marvel franchise on Netflix with audio description is vastly different from Black panther.

For the sake of comparison, I asked Denna about her thoughts on Marvel’s Luke Cage.

Luke Cage is the black superhero who calls Harlem home. He can’t be hurt. Bullets bounce off and knives can’t penetrate his skin.

The person describing Luke Cage, who by my account sounds like a white man, describes the other shows in the series, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Punisher and more.

DL:
He’s been consistent through the marvel comic series as netflix has been rolling it out. So it was almost embedded in brain that this was the dude that’s going to bring it. There was definitely some awareness in hearing when they would say things like “he’s wearing a fedora.,” or “he’s swaggering down the sidewalk” or “he did a dab” or the hair. And I don’t know if just anybody can point these things out.
With Luke Cage there was nothing apologetic about how this is the blackest comic that you are going to get. What I really loved is that the describer, I don’t know if it was apparent to the visually to whomever was viewing it, but I love that they reference the specific artists as they came up in the Paradise Lounge.
So to me that was showing respect and it gave me the experience of thinking “okay let me go look for some of these people.”
Tr in conversation with DL:
It’s not only the ones who are actually performing, they also are good at including people who are just around and even in other scenes.

DL:
Yeah so even like the picture of Biggie, he described his expression, his crown and how it was kind of laid to the side. To me that, I don’t know, it just seems…

Tr in conversation with DL:
Just culturally confident.

DL:
And I think with you were saying earlier, it wasn’t like two different scripts. It felt like there was one different script with the description being apart of the verbalizations too.

Tr in conversation with DL:
I almost don’t even think of the description as description while watching netflix.

DL:
Right!

TR:

That term truly encapsulates what should be a part of the audio description checklist.

Is the description culturally competent – meaning are we informing the blind viewers about the subtle references that will make sense to them? This would probably require input from the films creator if there’s no one in the know involved in the process.

This idea is already relevant to the movie or television show’s dialog and choices made regarding character development.

It’s one thing being black and looking for true representation in Hollywood. What about as a woman? As a black woman with a disability.
Tr in conversation with DL:
What do you think about the role of the black woman in Luke Cage.

DL:
Oh now that was pretty sweet! I was really proud that Luke Cage he’s like the strong Black man. Hes caring. I was really glad to see his girlfriend, Claire. And she was holding on to that no this behavior of holding on to your anger, she grew up with that and she was not going to tolerate it.
I loved Missy. I loved that she was this strong woman who was feminine. She
Didn’t lose not just her sexuality bit sensuality.
There was so many different aspects of black women in this. You had Mariah.
Tr in conversation with DL:
[laughs] She was crazy.

DL:
She was great! She played that! I loved seeing Luke’s father.

Tr in conversation with DL:
I didn’t realize that he passed, I totally forgot he passed away.

DL:
Yeah! Because he was in House of Cards and I was so happy to see he was in there. SO there were so many examples, a whole spectrum of what blackness in. You know you don’t have to be the thug or the jessabella. There were so many different examples of black women in there that i was really impressed.
I love how Missy called out all of her coworkers cause they were staring at her prosthetics. SHe was like “let’s just get a look at it, im here, im not going away, this happened.” And i was just glad that she called it out. That was a way of handling disability, it became a part of who she was. She even described on when she was using her prosthetic arm or robotic arm and when she wasn’t. Which I don’t know if that was so important for me to know but the describer pointed that out.

Tr in conversation with DL:
I think the whole idea was that shes statint to use it more and it’s even more of a part of her, she’s getting accustomed to it. And so I’m wondering if she’s going to get her own thing.

DL:
Yeah you know what, she was doing some things that were like humanly impossible so I was wondering if she’s going to get some superpowers.

Tr in conversation with DL:
Yeah because isnt that a Stark arm?

DL:
Yeah yeah.
I loved the complexity of them having different territories; the choinese, the russians. They pulled in references for Katrina and showing that there can be disagreement. Like the judge who said “i had a family in louisiana who lost everything, don’t use this as an example for your shadiness. I don’t know I loved it I felt it was pretty cool. The ending ended with I think he changed the picture from Biggie to Mohammed Ali. But that’s the thing! I think the way that the description was, we noticed those things but we don’t know what we missed in Black Panther.

Tr in conversation with DL:
What i liked about it was how they would say it because the director meant for it to be. For example when Mariah and Shades were standing in front of the picture and the crown aligned to Mariah’s head to show she was the queen.

TR:

As we see with Luke Cage it doesn’t specifically mean the narrator has to be black. Or does it?

TR in conversation with DL:
What would you think about a woman describing that? A black woman doing the description in Luke Cage.

DL:
Ohh. Oh.

Tr in conversation with DL:
You think it could work?

DL:
It would have to be the right voice because I’ve seen on Netflix the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt because it wasn’t really for me. But the person’s voice on there, I don’t’ know if she’s’ white or not, but no she could not do Luke Cage. [Both laughs] We don’t want her! She can do some other shows but she can not do this.
If Octavia Spencer or, why am I forgetting her name.

Tr in conversation with DL:
I know who you’re talking about you’re talking about the woman from How to Get Away with Murder.
DL:
Yes!

Tr in conversation with DL:
Yeah she has a great voice.

DL:
Yeah if she wanted to describe it, then yes.

TR:
For those who are fans of How to get away with murder… my apologies. The star of that show is the incredible Academy award winning Viola Davis.

Whether the description is voiced by a man or woman, Denna says:

DL:
It has to be somebody who follows that it was Harlem so you have to have somebody who has that Harlem… I don’t know.

Tr in conversation with DL:
That texture in their voice, I know what you’re saying.

DL:
It cannot be a very thin voice it’d have to be a full bodied voice.

Tr in conversation with DL:
I think it could work. That is if they don’t give me the job because I’ve put it out there before that I wanted that job. Although I like the guy who does it, I’m fine with him but if he’s going im going to jump in there because that’s Harlem. I’m not from Harlem, Im from the Bronx but I can take Harlem.

DL:
Yes! You could do it. [Both laughs]

TR:
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with trying to speak things into existence. But come on, , how cool would it be to have a person who is actually blind, from New York… born just a few miles away from Harlem, my Daddy’s from Harlem. And I’m blind. Universe, do you hear me talking.

#NetflixCallTReid

There’s much more to this discussion. Hopefully like the original episode, this will attract some feedback. I’d love to hear from others on this subject. Maybe you are a person of color and have some other examples of both disappointing and enjoyable audio description experiences. let me know. In fact, if you’re not a person of color and
was disappointed in the Black Panther description I’d like to hear from you.

When it comes to movies and television, Ultimately, , I think we all want the same thing; the right to enjoy the experience.

I’m interested in all experiences of blindness and disability in general, but I would really like to hear more from other people of color. I know there are some compelling stories out there .

For instance, corresponding with Denna prompted me to be even more nterested in her experience.
Let me show you what I mean.

Audio: Screen reader reading Denna’s email signature…
TR:
If you don’t speak screen reader, that was her email signature. Denna is a project manager at NASA.

Now, this wouldn’t be Reid My Mind Radio if we didn’t find out more about her journey. We’re going to get into that next time on the podcast.

So, if you’re new or if you haven’t just yet, may I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. Reid My Mind Radio is available on
Apple Podcast, Google Play, Sound Cloud, Stitcher, Tune In Radio. If you’re using a podcast app you can find it there.
Go on over to ReidMyMind.com for links to subscribe as well as a transcript of the show.

Remember that’s R E I D like my last name.

If this was your first time here I know what you’re thinking…
It happens all the time…